Unschooling: Self-Directed Learning is Best

[Beorn]

I'll only post what I considered the interesting part of the article, but if you're interested in reading the rest of it, then please go here (http://www.johmann.net/commentary/unschooling.html).


Unschooling: Self-Directed Learning is Best


Although I did not like my schooling experience, I accepted it as just the way things were. And, probably like most Americans who had been similarly brainwashed, I assumed that the purpose of the government schools was to teach its students what they needed to know—such things as reading, writing, and arithmetic—in preparation for their eventual lives as adults. It was not until roughly a year ago, when I became interested in the subject of homeschooling, that I learned the real purpose of the government schools: turning people into slaves that follow without question those in authority.

According to John Gatto (an award-winning teacher who taught in New York City government schools for 26 years and quit teaching in 1991), the schools teach a hidden curriculum of seven lessons:


Confusion

Gatto says that there are several things contributing to what he calls the lesson of confusion, including:

a lack of subject-related context for what is taught;
too many unrelated facts and unrelated subjects;
a lack of meaning and critical thinking about what is taught. About this lack of critical thinking Gatto says:
Few teachers would dare to teach the tools whereby dogmas of a school or a teacher could be criticized, since everything must be accepted.[5] (http://www.johmann.net/commentary/unschooling.html#fn5)





Class position

By class position Gatto means the way students are kept in the same class by age, and, within this age classification, further classified and separated depending on how the students have done schoolwise (for example, classification into so-called gifted classes).
About this lesson of class position Gatto says:
That’s the real lesson of any rigged competition like school. You come to know your place.[6] (http://www.johmann.net/commentary/unschooling.html#fn6)



Indifference

For this lesson of indifference Gatto is referring to the effects of the ringing bell that announces the end of the current class and the need of the student to drop whatever he is doing and proceed to the next class where a different teacher and subject await him. Regarding bells Gatto says:
Indeed, the lesson of bells is that no work is worth finishing, so why care too deeply about anything? [7] (http://www.johmann.net/commentary/unschooling.html#fn7)
In both middle school and high school, the standard block of time during which the current class takes place is about 50 minutes. At the end of 50 minutes the bell rings, announcing the end of that class. For elementary school the typical school-day for a student is not controlled by ringing bells, since the classroom time in a typical elementary school is mostly spent in the same classroom with the same teacher for the whole school-year.


Emotional dependency

This lesson of emotional dependency results from students having to submit to the designated authority, the teacher, regarding their personal desires during class time. As Gatto says:
By stars and red checks, smiles and frowns, prizes, honors, and disgraces, I teach kids to surrender their will to the predestinated chain of command. … Individuality is constantly trying to assert itself among children and teenagers, so my judgments come thick and fast.[8] (http://www.johmann.net/commentary/unschooling.html#fn8)



Intellectual dependency

This lesson of intellectual dependency is similar to the lesson of emotional dependency, since both lessons teach students submission to the designated authority. In the case of the lesson of intellectual dependency, the students specifically learn submission to establishment authorities, including the teacher, on intellectual matters. As Gatto says:
Successful children do the thinking I assign them with a minimum of resistance and a decent show of enthusiasm. Of the millions of things of value to study, I decide what few we have time for, or actually it is decided by my faceless employers. …
Bad kids fight this, of course, even though they lack the concepts to know what they are fighting, struggling to make decisions for themselves about what they will learn and when they will learn it. How can we allow that and survive as schoolteachers? Fortunately [Gatto is being ironic] there are tested procedures to break the will of those who resist … [9] (http://www.johmann.net/commentary/unschooling.html#fn9)



Provisional self-esteem

This lesson of provisional self-esteem is the effect that tests, grades, and report cards have on students. As Gatto says:
The lesson of report cards, grades, and tests is that children should not trust themselves or their parents but should instead rely on the evaluation of certified officials. People need to be told what they are worth.[10] (http://www.johmann.net/commentary/unschooling.html#fn10)



One cannot hide

By this lesson Gatto means the effect that constant surveillance has on students as they are watched by teachers and other school employees. About the underlying reason for this surveillance Gatto says:
… children must be closely watched if you want to keep a society under tight central control. Children will follow a private drummer if you can’t get them into a uniformed marching band.[11] (http://www.johmann.net/commentary/unschooling.html#fn11)




Besides teaching this hidden curriculum, the schools also separate children from their families, thereby weakening the bonds of family.[12] (http://www.johmann.net/commentary/unschooling.html#fn12) This attack against the family is a part of the larger campaign in America to atomize people into individuals, so that having only themselves they are weak and helpless and unable to resist the establishment.

[RoyBatty]

Scary stuff. More on the topic here, these social engineering programs are also being implemented in the UK.

http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com/

Encourage kids to question all authority, to be sceptical about it and to resist it! It worked for me (however I was self-motivated) :D :thumb001: :cool:

[Rudy]

Schools are still helpful for teaching the core basics. Many students are heavily propagandized about what is politically correct by their teen years. I am in favor of home schooling. Trade schools sound like they may be a good idea for some people also.

On the other hand, with all the complaints about the grammar on the internet, long term English classes may not be a bad idea after all.

I think of researching on the internet as my continued self directed learning.:)

[Beorn]

On the other hand, with all the complaints about the grammar on the internet, long term English classes may not be a bad idea after all.

In my experience, English lessons are taken up with recitals of Shakespeare (which is not necessarily a bad thing), personal poetry and story creation and little else.

I believe my grasp on the English language would be far superior than what it is today, had my lessons been full of the learning of verbs, nouns and other basic groundings before we ventured onto such grand schemes as already mentioned.

[Rudy]

I believe my grasp on the English language would be far superior than what it is today, had my lessons been full of the learning of verbs, nouns and other basic groundings before we ventured onto such grand schemes as already mentioned.
Same here. That is the weakest part of what I learned at school.

[Osweo]

This Gatto seems a bit of a dangerous social revolutionary. He's fighting against a hierarchical and disciplinary structure that barely exists any more in most modern schools. What's wrong is the matter that's taught.

In the entirety of my education, I learnt near enough ONLY how to write an essay and answer written exam questions in such a way as to jump through the right hoops to earn the grade. Some teachers brought welcome extraneous matter to it all, opening up certain worlds to me, but this wasn't the main focus.

I learnt NOTHING about personal finance, how to set up a business, how household appliances work, how the government of my country/town/world operates, how to actually get gainful employment, how to manage property, the law, ... and so on. Useful things for life.

Months were spent going over things that I could have learnt in a week from a book.

The social side was fun, though! :P

[Octothorpe]

The longer I teach in public schools, the less I believe in their efficacy.

The sad thing is, most public school teachers are so indoctrinated by their university professors in the disastrous 'self-esteem' philososphy that they can't even see that their classrooms are the source of the dysfunction they decry. And yes, English/Humanities/Rhetoric teachers spend FAR too much time on poetry, and virtually none on how to write a business-style letter.

[Lahtari]

I learned the real purpose of the government schools: turning people into slaves that follow without question those in authority.

The author of this article needs to do two things:

First, to stop making baseless assumptions that the school is like that because some sinister social engineering conspiracy - instead of just because the arrangements are the most plain obvious. For example, how would you teach math or writing to a class comprised of 7 to 16 year olds? Or then he needs to provide some evidence or facts to support this assortment.

Second, to make concrete proposals of what could be done otherwise.

Of course his point stands that the modern school system is rather primitive and there's a lot to improve. But now he comes up as a patological Leftist whiner.